In recent years, microwave cooking has become extremely common. This is primarily because microwave cooking is an extremely rapid way of transferring heat to food, such that the food is cooked more quickly than by other methods. Essentially, microwave radiation excites water molecules in the food, heating it uniformly throughout.
However, microwave cooking is not without its drawbacks. Chief among these is the fact that precisely because the food is heated relatively uniformly throughout, rather than from the surface inwardly, as in the case of pan frying, the outside of the food does not tend to brown.
It would accordingly be desirable to provide a way in which the time-efficiency of microwave cooking could be combined with the aesthetic and flavor advantages of pan frying or other browning processes.
It would of course be possible to first pan fry a piece of food and then finish cooking it in a microwave oven. To date, this two-stage process has been rendered inconvenient by the fact that separate utensils have been employed for pan frying and for microwave cooking. Two utensils then have to be washed, etc., which is undesirable. Furthermore, the heat content of the utensil used in the frying process is lost if the food is subsequently transferred to another utensil for finishing in a microwave oven. This wastes both energy and time.
More specifically, browning a piece of meat on the stovetop has typically been done using a metallic frying pan. However, it is well known that as a rule metallic cookware is not suitable for use in the microwave oven. This is because the microwave radiation sets up electric fields in the oven, which tends to cause arcing between metallic elements which are spaced relatively closely to one another. This arcing occurs in a way which cannot be reliably predicted by the typical home chef. Accordingly, the industry practice has been to urge cooks against placing any metallic items in microwave ovens.
A need thus exists in the art for an improved cooking utensil which is suitable for pan frying and for use in a microwave oven, such that a food item can be first browned and then cooked through in a microwave oven, both in the same utensil, thus combining the advantages of eye appeal and taste from the pan frying process with the advantages of speed and energy efficiency in the microwave process.